


Undertow

by WrithingBeneathYou



Category: Naruto
Genre: Izuna and Madara out here just chilling and living that beach life, M/M, god AU, mystery mythological creature!Tobirama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-06-02 10:53:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19439974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WrithingBeneathYou/pseuds/WrithingBeneathYou
Summary: Since he was young, Izuna has always been enamored with the fantastical stories his brother tells.The villagers in their little beach-front paradise roll their eyes, but Izuna knows Madara’s tales are true.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my prompt fill for day 1 of [Naruto Magic Week](https://naruto-magic-week.tumblr.com/) over on Tumblr, "Forgotten Magic."

Since he was young, Izuna has always been enamored with the fantastical stories his brother tells.

The villagers in their little beach-front paradise roll their eyes, but Izuna knows Madara’s tales are true.

Long lost rituals to the old gods fill the small cabin they share with plumes of incense and ash before he goes to sleep each night. Subsequently, his dreams are patterned with the flashing hooves of each-uisge and the whoosh of wing beats as dragons take flight, all narrated by the smooth, calming cadence of a man best known for his rough edges.

Izuna believes in Madara’s convictions—holds them as his own and hopes every day to see for himself—but that blind faith couldn’t have prepared him for the sobering reality of it all.

The stuff of myths is as terrible as it is alluring. Actually, it’s downright ugly.

He stares down at his feet, barely able to breathe past the mix of joy and fear bubbling up his throat like heartburn. Waves lap up the beach and swirl around his ankles, cresting against the back of what can only loosely be considered a man. 

The creature appears as if it had tried to embody the concept of a human body without referencing the actual thing. Not-quite-right limbs—too long in places, joints hinged at wrong angles—fold up against its chest, forced there by tangles of fishing net. Gills lay flat and dormant between its ribs, drawing attention to the way a cavernous stomach dips in sharply beneath its sternum.

Izuna doesn’t know if the thing has been starved or if it’s naturally gaunt, but it’s a little disconcerting, certainly not a beautiful siren meant to lure him out to sea. He never imagined the stories would present quite like this. Even so, it’s his first sighting and that outweighs the fact that it looks and smells about as appetizing as day old fish.

He squats down in the surf and does what any human in the presence of the divine would. He picks up a piece of flotsam and pokes it.

“Huh.”

Nothing happens.

Madara would ream him if he knew he was doing this, risking retaliation or possibly death at the hands of something other. Izuna snorts at the thought and does it again. This time, there’s a near imperceptible flinch, red seals flashing across its skin quick as lightning. In their wake, fins he hadn’t noticed before snap open and strain against the tangle of net and seaweed, settling soon after.

Startled, Izuna falls back and scrambles away a pace. He sits there for a moment in the water, eyes wide, holding his breath. There are no further theatrics, no sudden well of magic or toothy maw descending on him.

Not a Vodianoi or kelpie, then.

He whistles as he exhales, turns it into a huffing laugh. It’s not even mid-morning and his brow is beaded with sweat.

“Okay. Alright. I’m a big enough person to admit this is Nii-san territory,” he says aloud for his own sake. 

Iridescent scales rise and fall like beetle wings where the creature’s face is now partially revealed by the shifted net.

“Definitely Nii-san territory,” he squeaks, voice higher than he’d prefer. 

Getting that much dead weight to Madara is going to be an issue, though. Not to mention his brother headed out with no indication of when exactly he’d be back.

Long minutes pass as Izuna sits in the surf, heedless of the sand that drifts into his swim trunks. The sun beats down pleasantly, offering no solution as to how to actually transport the horrifying thing up the beach, hoist it over the narrow stair railing, and carry it into his and Madara’s little beach home. He’s strong, but he’s not that strong. And why they had to build the damn house on stilts is beyond him—it’s not like typhoons have even touched their little village in the past twenty years.

Inhaling sharply, Izuna rocks up to his feet and sends a wave of small fishes darting off.

“You’re an ugly bastard, but by the Fire God, you’re my first. So, be gentle with me,” he teases, ruining the brazen affect with a bark of nervous laughter. The net is definitely staying in place, he decides. Though, even with that crutch, actually touching the creature for the first time without a stick between them is a daunting task.

He screws his eyes shut, wincing as he turns his head away, stoops down, and waves his hand in its general direction. There’s a hollow crack against the back of his knuckles, like striking the casing of a giant crab. The sound has him jumping back a pace and nearly falling ass over teakettle when his foot lands in the depression his bottom had created.

The abrupt yelp startles a group of plovers into sprinting over the sand.

“This is such a bad idea, Snow Crab,” he whines to the pale, unconscious nightmare. Not that knowing he’s doing something stupid stops him.

A half an hour of thoughtful pacing and hair pulling later, Izuna realizes he’s going to have to leave his mythological bosom buddy unattended if he’s ever going to get it transported. One last look reveals nothing different—no miraculous recovery or magical transformation into an attractive merlady. He’s about sixty percent it’s junkless anyways, but he’s not brave enough to find out for sure.

“Here’s the deal. You’re going to stay right where you are and keep up the sashimi act while I run into town. Cool? I’ll be back in like fifteen minutes. Er, one more finger past the horizon,” he says, holding his arms extended in front of him and stacking his fingers. “I don’t really know how fish keep track of time, but—oh, whatever, just don’t move, okay?” 

Not surprisingly, the creature continues to lie placid in its tomb of net and seaweed.

Izuna turns and dashes out of the water, his burnished bronze thighs powering him through the surf. As short as he is, adrenaline still manages to speed him along at a decent clip, sand flying up in his wake.

True to his word, he bounds over the rise not fifteen minutes later—ponytail flapping behind him like a loose sail and holding aloft an extra-large skimboard. He shoots his monster a rakish grin that never fails to put color on his fellow villagers’ cheeks. It does nothing to revive it. The thing is obviously immune to his charms on account of being unconscious and hideously deformed.

Izuna snorts.

“Let’s get you out of here and fixed up,” he announces, arms akimbo.

He nudges the creature with his foot just to be sure it’s still out and positions the skim board parallel to its bent legs. Fingers digging into the net, he manages to shift the thing’s weight and slide the skim board under it. He lowers the deceptively substantial mass and runs around to its rounded back, panting with exertion as he digs his knees into the sand and gives a hearty shove.

Success.

Water laps over his waist and splashes his arm pits as he collapses into the surf like a starfish and takes a moment to regain his wind. The mythological whatever it is weighs far more than its emaciated state suggests. Maybe it’s a supernatural thing. He wonders at that, but dismisses the fact as another of Madara’s little secrets—like why the hearth in their home is never allowed to go out, even in mid-summer.

Knowing wouldn’t change anything anyways.

He’d still be made to sweat balls.

Groaning, he sits up and grabs hold of the floating guide-rope he had mounted to the skimboard. It’s simple enough to wrap it around his waist as a makeshift harness, but nowhere near as easy to get enough momentum to climb the surrounding dunes.

“You’ve got,” he wheezes, “To be. Fucking. Kidding me.” The progress is incremental and his legs burn by the time he crests the rise. There’s only a short stretch of pampas grass between them and his home, but even that seems daunting.

“You had better. Grant wishes. Or something. You overgrown. Crustacean.”

The rope around his waist jolts. When Izuna whips his head around, the creature remains in the same position it’s always been, strapped to the board. Its persistent stillness is almost as unsettling as the thought of it coming back to life and trying to drown him like in Madara’s stories. Almost. Well, not really.

When they finally make it to the base of the house stilts, Izuna’s legs ache with fatigue and the whipcord sting of pampas grass. His new friend lost a bit of kelp along the way, but otherwise looks as intact and fish-belly white as ever.

He collapses in a heap on the first step of a seemingly endless staircase. “I’m going to be honest with you, I have no clue how I’m getting you up these stairs.”

The soft rustle of beach grass is his only answer, to which he rolls his eyes and drops back onto his elbows.

If his adopted family of one is to be believed, Madara raised him from a time he was too young to remember, when he washed ashore in a clam shell and toddled up the beach on too-small feet. Sure, his brother was probably appealing to his vanity in order to coax him to sleep that night, but Izuna had never forgotten the tale. Since then, he’s always felt the call of something _other_ —had the urge to strike out and return Madara’s accounts of boundless adventure with one of his own.

When his brother spoke of mythical gods and beasts they had all seemed so magical. Even the cautionary words and dark glowers weren’t enough to put a damper on Izuna’s high hopes of one day meeting something divine.

A pity the reality is such a pain in the ass.

Izuna sits up, heartbeat finally under control, and toes the creature. 

“I’m probably going to wind up having to carry you like a damsel, so try your best not to eat my face when I do. Sound good?” he says with faux cheer. His affected grin quickly shifts into a grimace.

The net is going to have to come off. There’s no way around it. 

“Ugh. Why couldn’t you have just been a Nereid?”

Izuna absently rubs at the sheet of sweat rolling down his chest and wipes his hand off on his equally sodden swim trunks. May as well get on with it. The shape of his fishing knife is a familiar one, and he retrieves it blindly from the sheath he keeps strapped on his thigh. Gritting his teeth, he eases close to his monster and squats down behind it. At least this way if it goes berserk he won’t immediately be on the business end of the black talons he sees peeking out of the seaweed tangles.

The first cut should slide through the twine like butter considering the finely honed blade he wields. It catches, though, and pings with the telltale sound of metal on metal.

“What?” he mutters, pulling harder, jerking his arm to apply more force.

There’s no give.

Perplexed, he leans in close to study the net cord and finds steel cable buried within the twine. Embedded in and around it appears to be fine lines of lead solder. Lead—an unholy means to bind the might of the gods. Madara had been insistent that there be none of the stuff in their house. No televisions, no computers, not even PVC piping. Their “primitive” lifestyle was an ongoing joke in the village, but his brother would broker no argument.

Lead, he claimed, was the harbinger of all ills. Iron for fae, copper for djinn, lead for gods and their ilk.

Only now could Izuna understand why. Gritting his teeth, he gives up trying to hack through with his knife and runs inside to grab a pair of bolt cutters instead. He falls upon the net with a vengeance and makes quick work of it.

Once the restraints are lifted, he can see the fine crisscross of open wounds, oozing blue and black ichor. The smell hits him hard, like the beach in the wake of a red tide. He turns away and gags. Though, he’s not sure what makes him more ill, the putrid scent, or the realization that people did this to something supernatural on purpose.

Some disgusting piece of trash intentionally trapped it and left it to starve.

“This is disgusting. I—not you, I don’t mean you. Just, how could anyone do something like this?” he asks without the expectation of a response. After all, no answer would suffice.

The creature’s hair is coarse and salt stiff as he runs his hand across its brow and eases the fringe up.

His first assessment was right, the thing is hideous—all sharp angles and sunken flesh. Slack lips give a glimpse of translucent, needle-like teeth. The only splashes of color on it are three vivid red slashes on its face, too perfectly formed to be an accident.

There’s no way to tell what it is other than ‘decidedly not human’ and ‘probably not a fairy.’

Still bolstered by his anger, Izuna doesn’t hesitate to slide his hands under the too-thin body and lift it up into his arms. Without the weight of steel and lead, the creature is exactly as light as it first appeared.

“Let’s go get you cleaned up,” he announces.

Bounding up the stairs two at a time, he traverses them quickly and turns sideways to shoulder open the door. The place he shares with his brother is modest—an oddly empty foyer, two bedrooms, a shared bath, a living area more furniture than walking space, and a tiny kitchenette. It’s small, but it’s been home for over twenty years now.

Luckily their guest doesn’t seem to take exception to the subpar lodgings.

Izuna sets the creature down on the floor and runs to retrieve a bag of chalk, rethinks it, then grabs greasepaint instead. He goes to the bathroom and drags their clawed-foot tub into the middle of the foyer, gouging the floor the whole way. As soon as it’s in place, he draws a neat containment seal around it—because he’s not a complete idiot, contrary to what his brother claims—then gets to work filling it. Even with the hand crank, it takes an inordinately long time to draw water up from the cistern below.

Once done, he manhandles a massive bag of sea salt from the kitchen. He tries to tear it open with his teeth like an idiot, then resorts to his knife once more. Hissing when he accidentally cuts himself and gets salt caked in the wound for his troubles, he hefts the bag and begins pouring. It’s second nature to eyeball the ratio and get the specific gravity close enough to their little stretch of ocean. Not perfect, but it’s better than Snow Crab drying out before he can find a hydrometer.

“Alright, my fishy friend, in you go,” he chirps, hoisting the creature and sliding it into the tub. Water sloshes everywhere, but Madara’s not here to bitch about it.

Izuna swishes his hands clean in the water and takes a step back. 

Surprisingly, being half immersed has an immediate effect. The dormant gills along the thing’s sides flare wide and slap back rhythmically, as if gasping for breath.

“This is a thing that’s happening. Cool,” he says, grinning proudly. Broad fins spread out from somewhere unseen and flap out over of the tub’s rim. His smile falls in increments. “Oh, shit. This is a thing that’s _happening_.”

Sucking on his cut thumb, Izuna wisely steps back even further outside of the seal.

When another great unfolding reveals a series of bioluminescent tentacles, Izuna beats a hasty retreat to the kitchenette. Offerings, he thinks quickly, chewing his bottom lip and sifting through the narrow fridge.

Make the thing happy. Always make things with tentacles happy, especially in the event you are caught on the business end of said tentacles sporting nothing but a set of palm-tree patterned swim trunks.

Izuna’s seen anime. He knows how this goes.

“Yes!” he crows, pulling out a good-sized mackerel he dressed the night before. “As the divine prophet, Uchiha Izuna, once said: fish for a fish and we all get to leave here with our dignity intact.” He slams the fridge closed and leaps over the back of Madara’s well-worn love-seat, skidding to a stop at the foot of the tub.

Without fanfare, he flings the fish somewhere towards the middle of the bath and claps his hands together in prayer. “Lord of sea and…er…maritime stuff, I return your essence and offer my supplication in thanks,” he says, blatantly ripping off the prayer Madara has him say before stoking the hearth every night.

For all that it’s a knockoff, it seems to do the trick.

The water churns and froths violently, drawing the fish down in a cloudy whirlpool. The fins and tentacles draped over the tub lash the air—narrowly missing Izuna’s head—and disappear into the vortex with a slurp.

Eyebrows raised to his hairline, Izuna stumbles back and watches as the water in the tub follows suit, consumed in a Gordian knot that eventually slams into the thing’s chest and leaves the room as dry as a sun-bleached bone.

There’s a long bout of silence, then a set of pure white hands grip the rim of the tub, claws tapping against the porcelain. Izuna’s mouth gapes wide in unabashed wonder. This isn’t the ghost-of-crab-legs-past he dragged up the beach. This is one of Madara’s stories come to life.

Lithe muscle flexes and the creature pulls itself up, stepping over the side of the tub on mile-long legs. Its opalescent skin sparkles in the light from the windows, emphasizing the well-formed body of a man.

Madara always said it was the ones who looked most human that you had to be wary of—to proceed with a generous amount of caution when approaching.

“Huh. I guess you’re not that ugly after all,” Izuna blurts out, eyebrows raised nearly to his hairline. The creature pauses, tilts its head, and scoffs as it promptly dismisses him.

It studies the room and breaches the greasepaint seal with no more than a flutter of scales. The only thing that seems to draw its attention for more than a passing glance is Madara’s ridiculous year-round hearth. Izuna watches it stride towards the cheerfully crackling flame with purpose, spreading and flexing its webbed fingers.

“Hey, don’t touch that!” he shouts, scrambling to put himself between the fire god’s altar and the six feet of whipcord muscle and teeth bearing down on it.

The thing sidles up close enough that they’re standing face to collarbone, gives the impression of measuring Izuna up and finding him severely lacking. He goes up on his tiptoes to close the gap and glares right up into eyes that are variegated red and blue like a candy basslet.

“I’m not afraid of you,” he announces, very much afraid. “So pull that seaweed out of your ears and back off.”

Snapping its teeth, the creature snatches his ponytail and gives one sharp tug. There’s a flicker of some emotion Izuna can’t begin to figure out on its austere face at his pained yell, there and gone before he can even register it.

“I should have left you for the sea gulls,” he shouts petulantly, grabbing hold of its wrist. “You don’t just barge into people’s homes and…and, leak water everywhere and piss off their brother’s old gods, dickwad!” As loveable as people usually find him to be, he’s always had a horrible habit of channeling Madara’s temper at the worst times.

“And you don’t grab their fucking hair!”

There’s another sharp jerk, hard enough to bring him to his knees.

Groaning, Izuna clamps onto the base of his ponytail with both hands and flings himself back like a child. When the creature holds firm, he braces his feet on its knees and pushes with all of his might.

“I went out of my way to save your waterlogged ass today and this is the thanks I get?” he continues to holler.

Blue bioluminescent streaks flit over the creature’s shoulders and chase a track down its chest all the way to its feet. And apparently it is a ‘he.’ From this angle, there’s a substantial amount of evidence to support that fact.

At least if Izuna is going to die today, it’ll be at the claws of a sea monster with a big dick. Brain to mouth filter be damned, he goes ahead and says as much. There’s a brief pause wherein the creature flares a series of translucent fins along its arms, then sends Izuna rolling across the foyer so hard he collides with the back of an armchair in the living room. 

Tall, sharp, and pasty somehow looks even more menacing stalking towards him upside down and framed by his own thighs, Izuna thinks. Grunting, he rolls sideways and staggers up to his feet. The room spins for a moment before he gets his bearings, then he’s off like a shot.

He hurdles the armchair, dashes over the back of the sofa, and takes a flying leap back towards the foyer. Madara can deal with whatever unholy terror he’s unleashed later. For now, he’s had his fill of fairytale adventures.

Just as he’s a stride away from the rectangle of sunlight that spells his freedom, there’s a powerful whoosh—more felt than heard—and he’s rebounding off of a ridiculously solid chest at full speed. The ground rises up to meet him with all the give of a thunderclap.

“Fuck,” Izuna whines as the world slowly closes in and goes black.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Izuna's horrible, no good, very bad day.

When Izuna comes to, he immediately regrets every single life choice he’s made up to this point. He should have insisted on moving to the city when he turned eighteen no matter how much Madara raged. He should never have listened when his Nii-san spun tales of adventure and novelty to begin with. Being born was probably a mistake, too.

Groaning, he cracks open his eyes and squints against the sun blazing in through the open door.

“Sage’s balls,” he hisses, then slams them right back shut. Somebody’s balls, at least.

Cool hands smooth away his bangs and draw sigils against his temples. There’s an odd, grating rumble that resonates long after it should have dissipated and solid muscle shifting under his head.

Oh, yeah. He brought home a whole lot of crazy packed into a twunky sausage casing. The mythological equivalent of a prom date six years too late. 

Madara is going to flip a table.

Izuna rallies his courage and tries to open his eyes again. The brightness leaves white and black afterimages, but they do little to hide the austere creature bent low over him, so close they’re almost sharing breath. He’ll deny the soprano note his shriek reaches to his dying day.

Wincing, the creature shies back just in time to avoid Izuna’s forehead as he jolts upright. He snaps his jaws and lets out a series of clicks more felt than heard.

This is one of those good news, bad news scenarios, Izuna thinks. Good news, he’s alive, his swim trunks are still securely fastened, and Crab-lump doesn’t seem to be actively pissed off with him anymore. Bad news, Crab-lump is still in his home and way too comfortable with rubbing those frigid hands all over his person. He feels indecent with how erect his nipples are in midsummer.

Scooting on his bottom, Izuna manages to contort himself out of the maze of claws, fins, and—oh, gods—tentacles. He whips around onto his hands and knees once he’s free and backpedals as quickly as his very human self can manage.

Again, he earns a flat, narrow-eyed expression. He’s being judged, he knows.

The creature rises in a wave of extraneous appendages and slowly retracts the whipping tentacles and the largest of the fins back into his body. There’s still absolutely nothing human about the scales that glitter with both natural sheen and flares of bioluminescence, nor the violent red and blue of his eyes. He takes a single step toward where Izuna kneels.

“Can you just, not?” Izuna says, swallowing reflexively when his voice rasps. He tries to look anywhere but up.

Cocking it’s head, his personal nightmare raises a single eyebrow. Izuna can _hear_ it.

“Listen, I don’t know what you are or where you’re from—other than the ocean, I mean,” Izuna begins, sitting on his heels and scratching at his salty scalp. “But can we just agree to disagree on how much seafood is acceptable in a young man’s diet so I can get you to fuck off already?”

His words have an immediate effect. The air in the house pulses, dust falling from the rafters. There’s the strange sensation of kinetic potential filling the space and thickening it with the scent of ozone.

Ah. Mouthing off not have been the wisest course. He can’t help it, though, it’s instinct—he laughs when he’s nervous and spews empty bravado whenever faced with the divine (or his brother). When this little soap opera resolves itself, he’s going to do his Nii-san and himself a favor by buying a permanent muzzle.

His mouth is a weapon too powerful for this world.

Flaring its gills, the creature storms over and yanks Izuna up by the armpits as if he were weightless. Izuna pedals fruitlessly at the air with his feet and automatically latches onto dense biceps. The wall slams against his back with a slap, then, the creature insinuates a thigh beneath him and brackets his face with cool, soft palms.

Thumbnails trace the corners of his lips and for a brief, bizarre moment, Izuna thinks he’s about to be kissed. Instead, he’s treated to the delightful experience of having those fingers shoved uvula-deep in what he imagines is similar to the feel of fellating a box of Gortons’s fish-sticks. He slams his hands against the thing’s chest and shoves with strength born of adrenaline and a very powerful gag reflex.

Saliva fills his mouth and he has to swallow repeatedly. Hunched over and coughing, he staggers away and holds out a hand in warning as the creature makes to follow him.

“What the actual fuck,” he manages to choke out, “is your deal?”

In a surprisingly human gesture, his impromptu house guest rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. He mouths at the air fruitlessly, but hisses and pinches his lips when all that comes out is a series of wet chirps.

Right. Communication. Okay.

Izuna licks the spittle from his lips and tries again. “Can you write?” he asks, raising his voice and over-enunciating. He gesticulates wildly, then pantomimes writing on his palm.

Again, he receives little more than a derisive snort and the wave of a pale hand.

“Alright, fine. Can you do interpretive dance, anything? Come-on Crab-Rangoon, I’m trying here. In about five seconds I’m going to stop trying and get the broom.” There’s obviously some confusion as to what a broom is if the furrowed brow is anything to go by. Though, that curled lip could also have been from the derogatory food reference. “What do you waaaaant?” he says dragging out the word with a whine.

The creature follows Izuna as he walks backwards towards the living room. He flutters the cerulean gills on his sides and raises one taloned finger, pointing back into the foyer to indicate the small hearth inset into the wall. Where there should be a cheerfully crackling blaze is little more than a single, guttering flame.

Izuna’s heart clenches.

“Oh, no. Oh, shit. _Shit_!” He dashes back towards the foyer. With everything going on, he hadn’t realized how long the shadows had become. The creature’s eyes and markings were the only warm hues he registered. Now he can see that the sun is setting in that strange way it has of speeding up the closer to the horizon it gets. Night is coming and he is not about to screw this up after twenty-four years of loyal servitude to the god of fire. If anything, Madara would have his ass in a sling.

Moving with that ridiculous burst of speed that makes him appear out of thin air, the creature comes in low and clotheslines Izuna at the hips.

The impact is hard enough to make Izuna double over. His momentum carries him right on over what feels like a steel pipe. The floor approaches him with velocity for a second time that day. However, right before his face impacts, his mythological abuser reels back, aborting the motion and bringing Izuna flush against his chest.

It’s hard and chitinous, tolling like a gong when Izuna’s head strikes it.

Dazed, he moans and lets the creature sink down to the floor with him wrapped in the simulacrum of an embrace. Fire god, he’s sick of being hit and manhandled. He’s no oceanic creature from the abyss, but surely even they have to have some semblance of etiquette that doesn’t involve whatever fresh hell this is. His swim trunks ride up his thighs as the thing shifts beneath him. When the room stops spinning, he finds himself firmly ensconced in Paralithodes camtschaticus’ lap.

Together, they sit and watch the flame in the fire god’s hearth sink lower and lower.

Izuna tries time and time again to wriggle his way out of the creature’s grasp to no avail. He kicks, screams, and threatens all manner of grievous bodily harm. Nothing. Desperation expands in his chest—bubbles of anxiety merging to gain traction and speed.

“Dude, let me go! You don’t know what you’re doing! Please, I’ll give you more fish. Prayers. I’ll suck your fish dick. I’ve got to stoke the fire before it goes out!” he pleads, voice edging towards the higher end of his register.

Still, the creature holds him firm. He runs a hand over Izuna’s hair, mindful of the salty tangles and begins to croon in a deep baritone.

The vibrations are obviously meant to soothe, but there’s no controlling Izuna’s panic.

“You raging _asshole_! Let me up!” he finally screams. The room wavers in his vision as he watches the god’s flame flicker and then blink out of existence with a last doleful curl of smoke. As if his strings had been cut, Izuna falls boneless in the creature’s arms.

His brother is going to be so upset. There was one rule to hold above all others—the flame was never supposed to go out. The closest he had come to failing was when he was thirteen and taking a nice midafternoon nap had turned into Madara shaking him awake at nightfall and essentially dragging him to the hearth. There was genuine fear in his brother’s wild eyes and racing heartbeat. His palm was sweaty as he wrapped Izuna’s slender fingers around the fire poker and guided him through the task.

In that moment, the fear that permeated the house became his own. He had to stoke the flame. Only he could keep the fire going for reasons Madara never divulged.

But, it doesn’t matter anymore. Izuna failed in his one duty, all because he had to take a swim in a pool he never should have even dipped his toes in.

“Fuck,” he says wetly.

The creature’s arms lose some of their rock-solid permanence and settle around him loosely. There’s the cool rasp of scales on his cheek and Izuna closes his eyes when he realizes that this time, it is a kiss that his personal nightmare leans in for. It’s chaste and doesn’t linger, though it still leaves a chilled impression on his temple.

Izuna goes limp and takes the indignity of being lifted without complaint. For someone so adept at using his words as both enticements and weapons, he finds himself with nothing more to say.

He sways with the creature’s stride and pictures the ocean. It’s rhythmic lapping has always been a balm for his soul, but even that can’t fill the hole left by ash and the smell of spent cedar. A series of short, sharp whistles interrupt his sorrow, jarring enough for him to open his eyes.

Before them, the hearth continues to glow in the presence of a single, yen-sized ember and behind it—deep in the back and partially submerged beneath a layer of fluffy ash—is something that catches Izuna’s eye. Sniffling, he dashes away his tears with the back of his wrist and reaches towards the glimmering pearl.

It’s just far enough out of his reach that the creature has to dip slightly for him to retrieve it. Coughing on the acrid taste of cinders, he rubs the small pearl clean on his trunks and holds it aloft. It catches the overhead florescents, glowing even brighter with its own internal light—the same that begins to thrum in Tobirama’s eyes.

“This is yours, I take it,” he says, clearing his throat.

The creature nods once and opens his mouth expectantly.

“Huh. Well, that’s too damn bad now isn’t it? You took away my fire, so I’m going to keep your little glowy ball,” Izuna drawls brazenly. Though, the effect is well ruined by the dried tear tracks on his face and the nasally quality of his voice. 

The creature’s expression turns dark, nails digging into Izuna’s ribs and thigh so hard he thinks there might be blood. He bares his translucent teeth and opens his mouth once again, dark blue tongue extending in obvious command.

“Don’t cop an attitude with me. My god’s favor is gone now because you’re an ill-mannered crustacean who wouldn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. You ever heard of tongs, huh? Ever heard of keeping your hands and wiggly bits to your own damned self? I’m so over you, Crab-legs!” Izuna snarls, clenching the pearl in his fist and bucking to get out of the pissed-off creature’s hold.

Come to think of it, he probably should have gotten down before firing a shot across his captor’s bow. He’s distraught; allowances should be made for poor decision making under duress. Not that fish-lips seems to care.

With a sickening squelch, two writhing tentacles burst from his back—both pale yellow and patterned with blue rings so bright they hurt to look at.

Oh yeah, Izuna had forgotten about those. And here he thought his nonexistent maidenhead was safe.

He clutches the pearl to his chest, kicking with legs made strong in the surf.

The creature snarls as he tries to contain the flailing, only to grow visibly frustrated. He hauls Izuna over to the couch and drops him unceremoniously.

Well-used springs twang beneath the cushions. Izuna rebounds hard enough to gain air and settles after the second bounce. He can’t get away quick enough, so he screws his eyes shut and tenses as a giant, white monstrosity descends on him and straddles his waist. In any other instance, Izuna would be tickled pink to have his junk pressed up against the buttocks of a naked man as well-formed as this one, but the extra bits are really off-putting. Including the teeth and the piss-poor attitude.

Especially the teeth.

The creature rocks against him, riding his pointless squirming.

He snatches Izuna’s wrists and pulls them up with all the power of an undertow. The tentacles lash around his ankles to rip away his purchase on the couch and still his bucking.

“I’m going to drown you in Old Bay and butter,” Izuna snarls just as his fist is pried open and a cool tongue laps up the arch of his palm to collect the pearl.

The creature rears back—never relinquishing his hold—and looks to the ceiling for a long moment. His throat bobs once. He licks his lips and groans, bioluminescence running a wild circuit around his body. When he deigns to look back down at Izuna, his lip curls.

“My name is Senju Tobirama, and you will curb your mortal tongue lest I remove it and house it in your fire god’s bracer for the foreseeable future,” Tobirama states flatly.

And oh. _Oh_. A voice that rich should be illegal.

Izuna wipes his moist palm off on Tobirama’s thigh, garnering an almost imperceptible twitch at the corner of one glowing eye. He gets the impression that Tobirama’s statement is no empty threat and the divinity can probably imagine quite a bit longer than he can. But, no power here or elsewhere can stop the inevitable tsunami of nonsense from overwhelming Izuna’s survival instinct.

“First off, this is my home, so I’m the boss here. I make the rules. And rule number one is get your sashimi balls off of me. And secondly, go get fucked.”

Surprisingly, Tobirama doesn’t spear him through with one of those spurs rising and falling along his forearms. Instead, he leans in close enough for Izuna to smell the brine of the ocean on every controlled exhale.

“My flesh stretches as far as the mortal eye can see. It devours all in its path and carves out the coasts. Comparatively, you are nothing, _Uchiha Izuna_. It is my will that must be obeyed, not that of a paltry mortal. And if you are so inclined to see me bedded, do it yourself,” Tobirama intones, baritone voice rolling with unchecked power.

Izuna pales.

“Please, I know better than to go balls deep in crazy,” he retorts with none of his prior vitriol, pointedly not addressing the fact that the naked man sitting on his lap is apparently the God of the Sea.

Thankfully, the approaching clatter of footsteps on the stairs diverts their attention from the debacle of sustained conversation. Tobirama tenses above him and looks towards the door with slowly widening eyes.

The open doorway fills with the comforting presence Izuna knows so well—all broad shoulders and larger-than-life aura.

“Oh, hey, Nii-san,” he calls out with a little waggle of his fingers. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

Hopefully he won’t be chewed out too badly for his first foray in god-wrangling. Though, he needn’t have worried. Madara only has eyes for one of them.

“Tobirama.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drinking games and revelations ensue.

This is Izuna’s personal drinking game.

Every time his brother or the naked Sea God say something bat-shit crazy, he knocks back a mouthful of beer. Except that it’s only been ten minutes and he’s two outdated, fruit-infused monstrosities down already, even after mentally amending his rules to ‘sip’.

As a notorious lightweight, this does not bode well.

Another vehement round of cursing has Izuna covering the top of his bottle and lifting his feet to avoid the surge of salt spray.

“You left me to die,” Tobirama snarls, punctuating his ire with a flare of fins. “You tore the pearl from my chest and drove your embers so deep that I _burned with it._ ”

Sip.

Madara finally deigns to step into the house, slamming the door shut after having stood in the doorway screeching like a particularly foul-mouthed banshee for the past fifteen minutes. The door rebounds off of the door frame, but somehow finds its way closed again with the assistance of a blast of furnace-hot wind.

He storms right up to Tobirama until they’re chest to chest, all wild eyes and internalized righteousness.

“You’re so full of shit. That was a minor inconvenience at best and you know it,” he retorts, acting as if the needle teeth snapping a scant three centimeters from his face are an everyday occurrence. “ You could have called up a wave at any point and knocked me flat, but you didn’t. So cut the ‘poor-me’ act and stop being such a dramatic ass!”

Sip.

“You stole my voice, you irascible troglodyte! The waves don’t heed my call without it, as you are _very much aware_.”

Tobirama drags his talons down Madara’s chest, thoroughly shredding his favorite happy-sun-wearing-sunglasses print shirt. Curls of smoke ooze out from lacerations that glow like magma and heal near-instantly beneath.

“Please, like you haven’t caused a typhoon while your mouth’s been occupied. On multiple occasions!”

There’s a hiss of frustration, though Izuna can’t tell which of them it’s coming from. His hot-headed brother has been known on many occasions to lose his words in favor of whistling like a tea kettle, but this Tobirama dude isn’t exactly cool as a sea cucumber either. 

He takes an extended sip for the ones he missed. Maybe another for the way an intrepid tentacle seems to be sneaking up Madara’s cargo shorts.

Another empty bottle.

Izuna scoots to the edge of the couch and stares down into the brown glass neck, hoping to find some sort of answer as to what the fuck is going on right now. Predictably, the foam dregs fail to relinquish their secrets. Maybe a few more drinks and he’ll find what he’s looking for. Or perhaps some time to ruminate on the exact moment his life went upside down. Nodding sagely, he rocks up to his feet and snags the cardboard handle of the six pack with his pinkie.

“Going down to the beach,” he mutters as he wades through ankle-deep water and picks his way through the flotsam. A waterlogged magazine rolls across his foot and slowly meanders along with the current.

“By the flame, you are _not_!” Madara roars. And yes, it’s a roar—so powerful dust motes float down from a ceiling fan that’s been turned on a grand total of once in the past twenty years. Literal fire flares in his eyes.

Izuna glances down at his half-gone six-pack and wonders how many swallows of Pineapple Rush this justifies.

“Yeah. Okay,” he mutters, ambling back to the couch and flopping down onto an overly-moist cushion.

So, his brother is…a something. Probably the god of fire, if they’re going to keep the allegorical theme going here. He watches Madara tug at his hair, smoldering in both anger and form.

Canting his head and pursing his lips, Izuna idly wonders if he knows he’s exhaling smoke rings.

Whatever. Madara is the official God of Fire and Butt-Hurt. Which makes him feel a bit dirty having essentially stroked his brother’s divine dick with prayers every single night. This is all so wrong.

He strains against another twist-off cap until it gives, then knocks back half a bottle all in one go.

“Regardless, it’s not my fucking fault you like to shove yourself into everyone and everything you can get your grubby hands on!” There’s a pause, thick enough to linger. “That’s not what I meant,” Madara amends. He’s too bull-headed to sound sheepish, but it’s a near thing.

Tobirama bears down on him like a tsunami. “You would question my devotion?” His skin seems to lose its substance and bubbles visibly swirl within him. The air grows heavy with ozone. Only then does Madara ease back down off of his tip-toes and hold his palms up between them.

“By the flame, no. No. It’s just—you were in a snit and it seemed like a good idea at the time,” he mutters, not entirely contrite, but willing to give enough ground for Tobirama to regain his opacity.

Progress! Izuna takes a congratulatory sip for them. Then another for the implication—accidental or not—that the almighty Sea God is a slut. Though, considering the plethora of crab-based monikers he’s come up with, it’s rather fitting.

A swath of tentacles slips back into whatever strange void Tobirama seems to carry between his shoulders. He shifts his weight back into his heels and crosses his arms. There’s something about his manner that speaks to bigger things and Izuna can see the hunger in his brother’s eyes.

It’s a little weird, but considering the waves lapping against his calves, it’s certainly not the oddest part of the night. 

“Seemed like a—Madara, I was waylaid by the Gold and Silver brothers without access to the power of my domain. I’ve been bound and dormant on the sea bottom for the better part of three decades. How, pray tell, did those two brain cells you claim to own rub together and come to the conclusion that, yes, divesting me of my pearl was in fact a wise plan?”

Izuna shakes his head as he kisses the mouth of his newest bottle.

Sip.

Madara sputters and gesticulates broadly. “I didn’t mean to leave you vulnerable. You were spouting off and I couldn’t get a word in edgewise! I figured if I stole your voice you would—I don’t know, just be agreeable for once. I never meant…” His sentence peters out into a whine, akin to the sound of super-heated air escaping from a too-wet log.

Some of the obvious tension eases between them. It’s in the way the thrum of the air thins, the way the water begins to recede enough to leave Izuna’s ankles bare.

He kicks his feet absently and wonders why there seems to be four of them splashing about. It’s a mystery, and one that can only be solved by more alcohol. Though, now that he thinks about it, is essentially fellating the god of fermented wheat considered cheating on the gods he’s already been tricked into worshiping?

Theology is hard.

Sip.

“You never meant to bind me, leave me to the whims of god hunters, and in so doing, doom my favored mortal to be reincarnated for the first time in over a century? Is that what you never meant to do? Or did you never mean to gather up Izuna from the sea foam and raise him to be nearly as much of a pain in the ass as he was in the Warring Clan Era? Your intentions are a mystery to me. You’ll have to figure out how to sculpt your harpy screeching into actual mouth sounds and tell me properly,” Tobirama drawls. The sheer force of his sarcasm is impressive.

Not that a master of the art like Madara even flinches. Instead, he reaches out to snag one of the long spines held tight against Tobirama’s forearm and ease it forward to reveal a thin, blue membrane. Another hidden fin, Izuna realizes.

There’s an uncharacteristic gentleness in the way Madara traces the shimmering veins—none of the brusqueness he’s known for. 

“I’m sorry, you recalcitrant ass! Okay? I did the best I could,” he hisses, lacking bite.

Tobirama scoffs.

“It’s true! I sat and waited on this thrice-damned beach for years waiting for you to get over yourself and come home. When Izuna popped up, I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t exactly go find you, you watery bint. And your idiot brother fucked off on another one of his ‘guess which tree I am today’ sojourns. I did everything I could, Tobirama. It obviously wasn’t enough. But I raised Izuna, and I guarded your voice, and I waited.” Madara closes his eyes and tilts his face towards the ceiling, nostrils flaring.

Like this, Izuna can see the overlay of his adopted brother’s mannerisms coloring the trappings of a wild, but proud god. He’s also deep in his cups, so he may be imagining the two Madaras that waver together when the light flickers. The jury is still out. 

“And a wondrous creature you crafted. He’s ignorant and ruled by his emotions.”

Huh, sounds like the conversation has shifted back to him. The beach is sounding good again.

“I’m ignorant and ruled by my emotions,” Madara counters, wincing.

Izuna tilts his head in consideration and nods. It’s rare for his brother to be so self-aware, but it’s not exactly unheard of. He rocks to his feet in slow motion, surprised at how long it takes to stand up. His sodden swim trunks ride low on his hips and cling to his thighs—that must be why every step towards the window next to the couch feels so heavy.

Meanwhile, Tobirama jerks his arm out of Madara’s grasp and begins to pace a stunted circuit in the foyer. “He has the mouth of a sailor.”

“I have the mouth of a sailor.”

“He knows nothing of propriety.”

Madara sighs, hands on his hips. “Are we just going to keep going back and forth like this?”

A swirling wash of blue glows around Tobirama’s feet, lighting his face from below. The furrow between his brows stands out in stark contrast. “He has no recollection of me.”

At that, Madara inhales deeply and breathes out the rest of his tension on a long, slow exhale. He shifts his weight, allowing one leg to sag, and rubs at his face.

“Is that what this is all about?” he asks, though it’s not really a question. “Not the voice, or the god hunters, or whatever else…ugh. I tried to teach him your stories, but I didn’t know if you would be back within this version’s lifetime. Having memories of an endless love affair with gods isn’t exactly healthy for a mortal who has to live a normal human life. They crack. You know that.”

Tobirama stops his pacing, holds up a hand, and narrows his eyes in a gesture so human Izuna wonders if he’s imagining it.

“Did you just regurgitate my own words at me while adulterating the meaning to suit your purposes?” Tobirama asks, tone dropping towards the lower end of his register. The silence is telling enough for him to continue without an answer. “He is my heart. He was never supposed to forget, Madara. _I_ was never supposed to forget.”

Izuna pauses in his attempt to crawl out of the window with only one free hand and no coordination to speak of. The way Madara’s name sounds when Tobirama says it is different enough to ping something deep in his hindbrain.

“Wait, what wasn’t I supposed to forget?” he asks, completely overlooking the fact that ‘operation fuck off down to the beach’ requires subterfuge. It’s not his fault. His memory has never been that great, even when not pickled in Pineapple Rush.

He blames it on Madara dropping him on his head as a toddler.

And a child.

And a teen.

And an adult.

Really, all of the world’s woes should be blamed on Madara—the King of Crustaceans may be onto something here. He opens his mouth to say as much.

Fortunately for his life expectancy, a swift gust of flame cuts him off before a single syllable can fall out. It sets the ill-used ceiling fan to spinning.

“Izuna, get your ass back in this house, so help me!”

“God?” Izuna offers.

“That’s what I said,” Madara snaps. All it takes is a sharp gesture, and Izuna finds himself back in his familiar divot on the couch with smoking swim trunks and the odd aftertaste of a luau on his tongue. There’s a trail of molten glass making the water boil from the window all the way to the submerged legs of the coffee table.

Snorting derisively, Tobirama steps up onto the surface of the water and—taking Madara’s hand—stalks his way over to the couch. “You’re going to be making this up to me for a very long time, Uchiha,” he rumbles.

His answer is a squeeze of their clasped hands strong enough for Izuna to see his brother’s forearm flex.

“I’m aware. But at least this time he doesn’t have kunai and clan honor to lob at you,” Madara points out, as if that fact alone should garner him some sort of forgiveness.

“An oversight on your part, I’m sure.”

Maybe not.

Their approach comes as a series of still frames. Every time Izuna blinks, it seems like they’ve teleported forward a step. That’s how he knows he’s well and truly shit-faced. The crayon-colored six-pack contained the first and only bottles to come of Madara’s harebrained plan to start a brewery a few years back. Ninety-nine point nine percent of his ridiculously potent product wound up being poured into the ocean.

That was probably on purpose, now that he comes to think of it.

Porpoise.

He laughs.

The next thing he knows, his brother’s hand is a warm weight on his forehead and all of that glorious intoxication evaporates in an instant. Sobriety swoops back in on a thunderclap and hits twice as hard. The suffocating regard of two gods takes its place and sets his heart to racing.

He moistens his lips and swallows reflexively.

“Hey, um, before you two manage to up the creepiness factor any more, can you tell me what the _actual fuck_ is going on?” he asks, trying to disguise panic in petulance.

Though, it looks like his acting skills need work.

Tobirama ignores him completely. Instead, the god calmly steps over his legs and settles onto the coffee table, bracketing Izuna’s knees with his thighs. Fins flicker against his ankle and it’s all Izuna can do not to bolt. Or look down. He really wishes Sashimi Dick would put on a towel or something. 

Madara flops into his typical spot on the couch and wraps his arm around Izuna’s shoulders in a way that is familiar at least. Funny how being nestled against a man who was on fire a hot second ago can still manage to be reassuring. Izuna sinks into his side and instinctively tries to match the steady rise and fall of his chest.

“I will provide answers,” Tobirama capitulates. Blue tracks of light blink beneath his scales and gather in his upraised palms. He dips his chin and attempts a smile, though the execution is paltry at best—it’s as if he was told what muscle groups needed to contract, but was never given a proper visual. “Though, you may blame our partner for the pain you’re about to endure in receiving them.”

Izuna blanches.

Oh, absolutely not. He scrabbles back until he’s nearly on Madara’s lap and kicks at Tobirama’s hands. His toes are pruned and his form sloppy, but his daring makes the sea god hesitate.

“You can stop right there and take that glowy hand and shove it up your ass, oh mighty fish cake. I don’t need any weird stuff, just use your words,” Izuna rails.

Madara’s bark of laughter rocks them both—reverberates the air and makes it kinetic. “Quiet, brat,” he chuckles, eyes flashing with the warmth of affection instead of flame. The weight of his arm slides down to loop around Izuna’s waist.

Tobirama’s rictus grin slides off of his face in an instant. His eyes briefly turn cloudy as he blinks his nictitating membrane and sits up tall and straight on the coffee table. This close, Izuna can see the slits of his gills flutter, then slap closed.

“I have spread my being out into various vessels for safekeeping and my heart is contained within you. Without it I cannot love and I would have it back,” Tobirama states bluntly without bothering to expound any further.

It’s a lackluster answer and entirely unsatisfying—also bat-shit crazy. This whole situation is insane and Izuna expects to wake up at any moment. 

“Nope. Try again, Lord Voldemort. I’ve already heard that one,” Izuna drawls, wriggling his fingers in the way he suspects a wizard would. 

Madara’s amusement peters out into a sigh that smells like char. He shifts Izuna off of his lap to better spear him through with a put-upon glower. His chest puffs up for an impending lecture, but then deflates before he ever says a word. The stiff pointer finger he wields like a weapon falters.

Izuna’s impressed. It’s not every day that his brother manages to control his outbursts so easily.

He assumes it’s because he’s kind of right for once. After all, his brother’s the one who read the Harry Potter series to him when he was a kid. He knows what’s up.

Madara turns back to Tobirama with a huff, smoke curling from his lips.

“May I?” he asks.

Tobirama inclines his head and gestures for Madara to continue.

There’s a moment where he appears to gather his thoughts—solemnly watching the overhead light play off of the ripples at their feet, looking back to the hearth where flame rises up to crackle cheerfully once again.

Izuna braces himself for something truly profound.

“You’re not exactly my otouto,” Madara finally announces.

Yes. Truly profound.

“Ya think?”

Madara groans, deep and longsuffering. “Would you just not be my clone for five minutes and let me finish? Great. Thanks. My domain lies in magma and flame. Tobirama here is my husband—our husband—and rules over the watery shit. He shoved parts of his power into tangible objects to keep himself grounded in the mundane world so he didn’t turn out like Hashirama.”

“Who?” Izuna asks, as if that’s the only thing that doesn’t make sense in this maelstrom of crazy.

“He’s a dumbass and a tree. Don’t worry about it. The point is, you’re a human and you hold Tobirama’s heart, the same way the pearl is his voice, and the conch shell is his—”

A pointed clearing of Tobirama’s throat stops him mid-sentence.

“That’s enough. When I was captured I could no longer care for you as a mortal requires, and so your body perished and your soul was set free to be reincarnated,” Tobirama finishes.

He watches for a reaction, reaching out expectantly. The paleness of his fingers provides a stark contrast against the burnished tan of Izuna’s knees. There’s a terrible softness in the way his talons catch at the hem of the swim trunks.

Then, Madara’s calloused fingers slide forward to interlace with Tobirama’s and Izuna doesn’t know what to do with the curl in his stomach that feels nothing like fear. The pleasant baritone that has come to represent safety rumbles against his neck.

“After that, I raised you and waited for Tobirama to come back so we could be a family again,” Madara says softly.

“Cool. I have a question,” Izuna half-whispers.

Not surprisingly, it’s Tobirama whose attention snaps to him with an almost overwhelming gravity.

“Ask it.”

Here goes.

“Can you wingardium leviosa my ass down to the beach?”

Dead silence hangs between them for several seconds before Izuna bursts out laughing. He curls forward and guffaws until his stomach aches. There’s a deadly hiss. He snaps his head up just in time to catch the blurry outline of Tobirama’s hands as they crash against his temples and bring with them the force of a tempest.

The shadow of the sea latches onto memories accrued over twenty years having lived on the outskirts of Konoha. It forcibly drags images of Izuna’s quaint beach life away on an undertow, replacing them with centuries of remembrance flavored by love and devotion.

Images flash before him as if his eyes had recorded each one with perfect clarity—

Walking hand in hand with Madara atop battlements while the air hangs stagnant but for the scent of pitch.

Playfully running through the surf and laughing as he trips and falls into Tobirama’s open arms.

Taking them both into his body and shattering so sweetly under the swell of their combined might.

This is where he belongs. A mortal man blessed to be reborn time and time again to a love that can only be divine.

Izuna licks his lips and opens his eyes. He’s met with one of the faces he cherishes more dearly than any other. It’s impossible to fight the smile that blooms—sudden, strong, and guileless.

“Tobi,” he murmurs, closing the distance between them and doling out the affection Tobirama had so graciously housed within him. The kiss is tender. Slow. Even as Tobirama surges forward to press Izuna back into Madara’s bulk and pin him there against the rocks, the pace stays reverent.

Izuna allows his breath to be stolen, willingly drowns in the embrace of a being he had never thought himself capable of forgetting.

Madara wraps his arms around them both, as far as he can reach, and hums a familiar tune. He takes his turn at devouring each of them in turn—the song of the earth rising in his chest. When Izuna can breathe again, it’s in fast, panting gasps that taste like salt and burning cedar.

An unforgettable flavor.

Twenty-four years later, he’s finally come home.


End file.
